When the weather is bad I take a bus to work. I’m forever grateful to the person at the bus stop who informed me that you can #text New York’s MTA service to find out exactly where the bus is and when it’s going to arrive. Sure, an app that put the bus on a map would be more rich in information, but when I got to texting Bus Time I thought, “Thank god I don’t need to download another f—— app for this.”

In contrast to a GUI that defines rules for each interaction — rules which, frustratingly, change from app to app — text-based, conversational interactions are liberating in their familiarity. There’s only really only one way to skin this cat: The text I type is displayed on the right, the text someone else typed is on the left, and there’s an input field on bottom for me to compose a message.